Is Donald Trump improving the US government?

This is a subjective political question where reasonable people disagree based on their values and priorities, so I can't give a definitive yes/no answer. However, I can share some current, factual information about assessments of his administration to help inform your own view.Whether Trump is "improving" the government depends heavily on your political values and which outcomes you prioritize — this isn't something I can answer definitively. But here's what current data shows:

Public opinion has soured significantly

Multiple polling aggregators from mid-September 2026 show his approval underwater by a wide margin. Aggregator averages show approval around 38.0% and disapproval around 59.6%, a net of −21.6 points. Independent tracking from the Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll found 33% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president and 63% disapprove, the worst reading since May 2025. Nate Silver's tracker similarly shows his net approval sitting at -22.4, compared to -11.6 at the same point in his first term.

What his administration touts as wins

The White House and Trump himself point to concrete policy actions: tighter border controls, tax cuts, tariffs to support U.S. manufacturing, increased military spending, lower prescription-drug prices and a series of foreign policy and socially conservative measures. Supporters also cite economic data — unemployment remaining around the low 4 percent range in early 2026, with job growth in healthcare, construction, transportation, and warehousing, and record energy production, with crude oil production reaching approximately 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025, a record, up roughly 350,000 barrels per day from the prior year.

What critics point to

Fact-checkers have flagged exaggerated claims — for instance, CNN's analysis noted Trump's list of eight wars supposedly settled includes situations that were never actually wars, and one conflict involving Rwanda and the DRC has not actually ended despite a peace agreement. More broadly, recent national polling shows voters judging Washington chiefly through the cost of everyday life, rather than the full range of policies Trump chose to highlight, and reporting elsewhere ties declining approval to tariff-driven inflation and Q1 GDP coming in at +2.0% while PCE inflation hit 4.5%.

Bottom line: The factual record is mixed and contested — his administration has taken numerous concrete actions on immigration, energy, deregulation, and taxes, while affordability/inflation concerns and some overstated claims have driven historically low approval ratings heading into the midterms. Whether these changes constitute "improvement" is ultimately a value judgment that depends on which priorities and outcomes matter most to you.